The Verification Crisis
The Verification Crisis examines why modern security programs are failing to turn visibility into action. This extract from the 2026 Offensive Security Benchmark Report distills the most critical insights behind a single, systemic problem: security teams are overwhelmed not because they lack data, but because they lack proof.
With 99.5% of vulnerability scanner findings proving non-exploitable, teams are drowning in noise, remediation effort is misallocated, and confidence in prioritization has collapsed. As a result, 95% of security leaders report dissatisfaction with their ability to decide what truly matters on a day-to-day basis.
Whether you’re struggling to separate real exposure from theoretical risk, questioning why high-severity findings linger for months while others are fixed in days, or sensing that more tools haven’t led to better outcomes, this extract provides a clear, data-backed explanation of why the verification gap has become a security risk in itself and why visibility alone is no longer enough.
What you’ll find in the Verification Crisis extract:
Data showing how increased visibility has led to lower confidence in remediation decisions, with over 70% of leaders unable to determine which exposures are actually exploitable.
- A breakdown of the noise problem, including why only 0.47% of detected risks turn out to be real and how medium- and low-severity findings obscure truly dangerous exposure.
- Evidence of remediation paralysis, revealing how speed is possible when risk is verified — and why unvalidated high-severity issues stall without urgency.
- A clear recommendation for shifting from visibility-first to verification-first security, prioritizing exploitability validation, attack path analysis, and adversary context to align remediation with actual business risk.
